Transcript

00:00:01

>> This was Tovarnik train station in Croatia last year. This is the railway now. Before and after pictures showing areas in the Balkans once teaming with thousands of migrants and refugees, now deserted. On the surface, it may seem the crisis facing Europe has ebbed, but Reuters Michele Kambas in Athens says while the pictures show improvement, the actual numbers tell a different story.

00:00:25

>> The International Organization for Migration, which is a UN affiliated committee, has reported that by the end of July, arrivals were in fact up by 17% compared to last year and fatalities were also up by about 15%. Essentially, it's because the Balkan route has been sealed off for these individuals.

00:00:45

They're landing in places like Italy and Greece, which are the frontline arrival countries in the European Union. In many cases, in reception centers and in holding centers in both Italy and Greece and there is no visibility there.>> The contrast is stark. Many places show no signs of what signs of what once happened there.

00:01:04

Footage from last year, shows a Greek camp of near 15,000 migrants and refugees in border town Idomeni, now replaced by summer crops. Some locals here say migrants have simply moved to the forests where they can remain unseen.>> The European Union has signed an accord with Turkey which has essentially sealed off the migrant flow from Turkey to Greece.

00:01:24

Now human rights campaigners that we've spoken to say that this accord has, in fact, lulled European policy makers into some false sense of accomplishment that the problem has actually been solved and it hasn't. Because conflicts are still raging in places like Afghanistan, obviously, Syria and in Iraq.>> It may be a naive case of out of sight, out of mind.

00:01:47

>> Amnesty International has said, despite last year's panic, European governments have left the crisis unsolved.